PDF24 is one of the few truly free PDF platforms with no paywalls. Its redaction tool applies visual masking though — the underlying text is still recoverable. Here is what to know.
PDF24 deserves credit for something rare in the PDF tools market: it is genuinely, unconditionally free. No file size paywalls, no task limits, no watermarks on output, no upgrade prompts. Its founder's stated philosophy — "we don't like making users pay later" — shows in the product. If you need to compress, merge, convert, or sign PDFs without paying anything, PDF24 is one of the best options available.
PDF redaction is a specific technical task, and it is one where PDF24 falls short in an important way. The web tool applies visual masking: a black rectangle drawn over content, leaving the original text intact in the file's data structures. For documents where the information genuinely needs to be removed — not just covered — that distinction matters.
This comparison is honest about both tools. PDF24 is the better free general-purpose toolkit. MyPDFBoy is the better tool for secure redaction.
PDF24's web redaction tool (tools.pdf24.org/en/redact-pdf) allows you to draw black boxes over areas of a PDF. The result is a PDF that looks redacted — the content appears blacked out in any viewer.
Internally, the original content stream is unchanged. The black box is stored as an annotation or a drawing element layered on top. Using a PDF text extractor against the output returns the original text. In viewers that expose annotation editing, the overlay can be removed.
PDF24's desktop application (PDF24 Creator) may behave differently since it processes files locally, but its documentation does not specify whether its redaction performs content stream modification or visual overlay. Based on available documentation, visual masking is the likely implementation for both web and desktop.
MyPDFBoy processes redaction through PyMuPDF, which modifies the PDF content stream directly. The workflow:
After this process, the original content does not exist in the file. Text selection returns nothing. Text extraction tools return nothing. No annotation exists to remove. This is the same approach used by Adobe Acrobat Pro and compliance-grade tools.
| Feature | MyPDFBoy | PDF24 |
|---|---|---|
| Redaction method | True content removal | Visual overlay (masking) |
| Text extractable after redaction | No | Yes |
| Truly free (no limits) | Yes | Yes |
| Account required | No | No |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Other PDF tools | Redaction + watermark | 45+ tools, all free |
| Desktop app | No | Yes (Windows, macOS, Linux) |
| File size limit | Browser memory limit | Generous — no stated limit on web |
| Offline processing | No | Yes (desktop app) |
| Ads on web interface | No | Yes |
| File retention | None (processed in memory) | Uploaded to servers, retention unstated |
Both tools are free. This is worth dwelling on because it is genuinely unusual. Most PDF tools that perform any useful operation either limit free users aggressively or are ad-supported with annoying interruptions.
PDF24's free model is funded by display advertising on the web interface and revenue from an ancillary fax-to-email service. The ads are present but not egregious. The web tools have no task limits. The desktop app has no limits at all.
MyPDFBoy has no ads and no task limits. There is no free tier and a paid tier — it is simply free.
Neither tool requires an account or collects payment information. For casual users, both are accessible without friction.
PDF24 processes files on their servers (web tools) or locally (desktop app). Their privacy policy covers standard GDPR compliance for EU users. The exact file retention duration for uploaded documents is not explicitly stated in their public documentation.
Their desktop app is more private: files never leave your machine. For genuinely sensitive documents, PDF24's desktop app is the more private choice among their product options — but you still get visual masking, not content removal.
MyPDFBoy's web tool processes files on a server (not browser-local), but the file is processed in memory and not written to disk. No file copy is retained after the response is returned. No account means no identity association.
For document security, the bigger issue is not where the file is processed but whether the redaction actually works. A perfectly private processing model that produces visual masking is less useful than server-side processing that performs genuine content removal.
| MyPDFBoy | PDF24 | |
|---|---|---|
| Redaction | Free, unlimited | Free, unlimited |
| All tools | Free | Free |
| Account required | No | No |
| Watermark on output | No | No |
| Ads | No | Yes (web) |
On pricing, these tools are identical. The meaningful differences are in what the redaction feature actually does.
PDF24 has genuine advantages:
If you need a free Swiss Army knife for PDFs and will use it constantly, PDF24 is an excellent choice.
For the specific task of secure redaction:
If you are blacking out something that does not truly need to be secret — a price on a document you are sharing for reference, a name on something internal — visual masking may be fine for your purposes. PDF24's redaction handles that use case.
If you are redacting because you have a genuine need for the information to be unrecoverable — legal filings, personal identification, protected health information, confidential business data — visual masking is not sufficient. Use a tool that performs content stream removal.
PDF24 is one of the best free PDF platforms available and deserves its reputation. For general PDF tasks, it is excellent. For secure redaction specifically, it applies visual masking — adequate for casual use, insufficient for genuine data protection requirements.
If you need redaction that actually removes content from the file, MyPDFBoy handles that task correctly and is also free.
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Free PDF redaction with true content removal — not a visual overlay. No ads, no account, no file storage.
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MyPDFBoy lets you permanently redact any text or image from a PDF — completely free, no sign-up, and all processing happens locally in your browser.
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